STOCKS MAKE BIG COMEBACK AFTER EUROPE GETS KILLED: Here's What You Need To Know

This is now 6 straight days where stocks ended significantly higher than they were looking in the very early going of the day. Specifically, all major markets were off more than 2% at one point today, and all closed down less than 1%, with the NASDAQ almost going green late in the day.

But first, the scoreboard:

Dow: -106.56
NASDAQ: -9.02
S&P 500: -11.87

And now, the top stories:

Once again, everything is Greece, Greece, and more Greece. This weekend, most of the headlines were pretty ominous. On Saturday, Greek PM George Papandreou dramatically turned his plane around to Athens, cancelling a planned trip to DC. That preceded more back and forth negotiations between Greece and the Troika, with the latter demanding even more deeper cuts than had previously been assumed.

Also over the weekend, news leaked that Obama was set to introduce a big millionaire tax, a move his opponents are deriding as class warfare. To whatever extent this is seen as vilifying the “job-creating class,” this too seemed negative for sentiment.

So, not surprisingly markets tanked in the early going. Greece yields were wider, French banks got smashed, and big European indices were off 2-3% throughout much of the morning.

Not really relating to anything macro, late last night, Netflix announced a shocking move, splitting itself into two businesses (streaming and DVD delivery) and renaming the latter Qwikster.

The one big event in the middle of the day was Obama’s big tax cut announcement. It was pretty populist sounding, but the markets didn’t care too much.

Stocks stayed deep in the red for most of the morning. There was virtually no economic news (except the virtually irrelevant homebuilders sentiment number, which was a tad weaker than expectations). That all changed late in the day though, as rumblings out of Greece indicated that the country was close to some kind of “deal” with the Troika to get the next tranche of aid. Of course, they’ve been close to a deal several times, and arguably last week the assumption was that the deal was basically done. But still, that was enough to help spur the big last hour “rally” that we saw.

One interesting thing in the market: Gold got smoked all day, even in the early going when everything was getting killed. It’s been behaving inconsistent lately. A couple other huge winners: Apple and Amazon both hitting brand new highs.

Other than that, all eyes remain on Greece, and this week’s huge Fed meeting.